Jihad: How Academics Have Camouflaged Its Real Meaning - See more at: http://hnn.us/article/1136#sthash.56XudkfQ.dpuf

JIHAD AND HISTORY
In premodern times, jihad meant mainly one thing among Sunni Muslims, then
as now the Islamic majority.** It meant the legal, compulsory, communal effort
to expand the territories ruled by Muslims (known in Arabic as dar al-Islam)
at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims (dar al-harb). In this prevailing
conception, the purpose of jihad is political, not religious. It aims not so
much to spread the Islamic faith as to extend sovereign Muslim power (though
the former has often followed the latter). The goal is boldly offensive, and
its ultimate intent is nothing less than to achieve Muslim dominion over the
entire world.
By winning territory and diminishing the size of areas ruled by non-Muslims,
jihad accomplishes two goals: it manifests Islam's claim to replace other faiths,
and it brings about the benefit of a just world order. In the words of Majid
Khadduri of Johns Hopkins University, writing in 1955 (before political correctness
conquered the universities), jihad is "an instrument for both the universalization
of [Islamic] religion and the establishment of an imperial world state."
As for the conditions under which jihad might be undertaken—when, by whom,
against whom, with what sort of declaration of war, ending how, with what division
of spoils, and so on—these are matters that religious scholars worked out
in excruciating detail over the centuries. But about the basic meaning of jihad—warfare
against unbelievers to extend Muslim domains—there was perfect consensus.
For example, the most important collection of hadith (reports about the sayings
and actions of Muhammad), called Sahih al-Bukhari, contains 199 references to
jihad, and every one of them refers to it in the sense of armed warfare against
non-Muslims. To quote the 1885 Dictionary of Islam, jihad is "an
incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur'an and in the traditions [hadith]
as a divine institution, and enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing
Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims."
JIHAD WAS no abstract obligation through the centuries, but a key aspect of
Muslim life. According to one calculation, Muhammad himself engaged in 78 battles,
of which just one (the Battle of the Ditch) was defensive. Within a century
after the prophet's death in 632, Muslim armies had reached as far as India
in the east and Spain in the west. Though such a dramatic single expansion was
never again to be repeated, important victories in subsequent centuries included
the seventeen Indian campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), the battle
of Manzikert opening Anatolia (1071), the conquest of Constantinople (1453),
and the triumphs of Uthman dan Fodio in West Africa (1804-17). In brief, jihad
was part of the warp and woof not only of premodern Muslim doctrine but of premodern
Muslim life.
That said, jihad also had two variant meanings over the ages, one of them more
radical than the standard meaning and one quite pacific. The first, mainly associated
with the thinker Ibn Taymiya (1268-1328), holds that born Muslims who fail to
live up to the requirements of their faith are themselves to be considered unbelievers,
and so legitimate targets of jihad. This tended to come in handy when (as was
often the case) one Muslim ruler made war against another; only by portraying
the enemy as not properly Muslim could the war be dignified as a jihad.
- See more at: http://hnn.us/article/1136#sthash.56XudkfQ.dpuf

JIHAD AND HISTORY
In premodern times, jihad meant mainly one thing among Sunni Muslims, then
as now the Islamic majority.** It meant the legal, compulsory, communal effort
to expand the territories ruled by Muslims (known in Arabic as dar al-Islam)
at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims (dar al-harb). In this prevailing
conception, the purpose of jihad is political, not religious. It aims not so
much to spread the Islamic faith as to extend sovereign Muslim power (though
the former has often followed the latter). The goal is boldly offensive, and
its ultimate intent is nothing less than to achieve Muslim dominion over the
entire world.
By winning territory and diminishing the size of areas ruled by non-Muslims,
jihad accomplishes two goals: it manifests Islam's claim to replace other faiths,
and it brings about the benefit of a just world order. In the words of Majid
Khadduri of Johns Hopkins University, writing in 1955 (before political correctness
conquered the universities), jihad is "an instrument for both the universalization
of [Islamic] religion and the establishment of an imperial world state."
As for the conditions under which jihad might be undertaken—when, by whom,
against whom, with what sort of declaration of war, ending how, with what division
of spoils, and so on—these are matters that religious scholars worked out
in excruciating detail over the centuries. But about the basic meaning of jihad—warfare
against unbelievers to extend Muslim domains—there was perfect consensus.
For example, the most important collection of hadith (reports about the sayings
and actions of Muhammad), called Sahih al-Bukhari, contains 199 references to
jihad, and every one of them refers to it in the sense of armed warfare against
non-Muslims. To quote the 1885 Dictionary of Islam, jihad is "an
incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur'an and in the traditions [hadith]
as a divine institution, and enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing
Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims."
JIHAD WAS no abstract obligation through the centuries, but a key aspect of
Muslim life. According to one calculation, Muhammad himself engaged in 78 battles,
of which just one (the Battle of the Ditch) was defensive. Within a century
after the prophet's death in 632, Muslim armies had reached as far as India
in the east and Spain in the west. Though such a dramatic single expansion was
never again to be repeated, important victories in subsequent centuries included
the seventeen Indian campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), the battle
of Manzikert opening Anatolia (1071), the conquest of Constantinople (1453),
and the triumphs of Uthman dan Fodio in West Africa (1804-17). In brief, jihad
was part of the warp and woof not only of premodern Muslim doctrine but of premodern
Muslim life.
That said, jihad also had two variant meanings over the ages, one of them more
radical than the standard meaning and one quite pacific. The first, mainly associated
with the thinker Ibn Taymiya (1268-1328), holds that born Muslims who fail to
live up to the requirements of their faith are themselves to be considered unbelievers,
and so legitimate targets of jihad. This tended to come in handy when (as was
often the case) one Muslim ruler made war against another; only by portraying
the enemy as not properly Muslim could the war be dignified as a jihad.
- See more at: http://hnn.us/article/1136#sthash.56XudkfQ.dpuf